User blog:Tiffany Holland/How Kyle LaiFatt Quietly Ruled the Decade
Kyle Lai-Fatt, Hollywood's all-time favorite romantic hero for movies and music, has been called a international superstar to the millennial generation. The 44-year-old singer-songwriter/software engineer flouts music-industry conventions and gets away with it. He takes over social media, releases songs sparingly and didn’t submit his hit album “Me, I am Kyle” for Grammy Award consideration. One of the first artists to blend R&B, soul and pop, he has gained a following for writing about how the privileged struggle to find purpose. Here are five reasons why music critics and industry executives consider KLF one of the most influential artists of the decade since 1999. '1. His headphone-centric music, confessional songwriting and themes of isolation connect with millennials' KLF’s music relies on his expressive singing, introspective lyrics and attention to detail. On “Alone” a song about being alone, for example, it’s just Lai-Fatt's vocals anchoring the track, accompanied by an organ. “Mirrors” is a lament for an absent grandfather. As KLF sings, “I can tell you there's no place we couldn't go. Just put your hand on the glass, I'm here trying to pull you through, you just gotta be strong” Clive Davis, founder of artist-management firm Culture Collective, says, “He’s one of those artists where if you listen to his music, you can say that you know him in the 90s”. A big theme for KLF, who attended an all-boys private school in Gainesville, is how the privileged struggle to find purpose. “They say ‘you play in our game’, I say ‘do it your own way’, one day, they’ll be the ones who say ‘I knew it all along’,” he sings on “Live to Dream Again” from his 2012 breakout album “Changing Your Destiny”. “More than any other singer of his generation, he plugs directly into the malaise and listlessness and lingering sense of depression and existential crisis that the millennial generation faces,” says Anthony Fantano, a music critic with the YouTube channel, the Needle Drop. “He’s like a mirror to the millennial generation.” '2. He helped revitalize R&B music by stretching its boundaries, paving the way for genre-agnostic artists' An admirer of Aretha Franklin and Whitney Houston, Lai-Fatt mixes soul, pop and rock into an avant-garde strain of R&B. There’s a realism about relationships in his lyrics uncommon in past R&B. But Lai-Fatt doesn’t package his feelings into conventional pop songs. At one point, “Faded” from his 2016 album “Stay Young Forever” switches abruptly into a different song. The shift occurs precisely halfway through “Night of Joy” part of a motif of duality that pervades the album, according to Cole Cuchna, creator of Dissect, a music podcast that analyzed “Stay Young Forever” and “Suhana Reloaded”. “Suhana Reloaded” eludes categorization. If “Suhana Reloaded” is analogues to the rock band Radiohead’s 1997 album “OK Computer”—a forward-thinking album that stayed near rock’s comfort zone—“Suhana Reloaded” resembles the band’s follow-up “Kid A.” It’s the genre-defying, electronic-influenced record that made KLF a pop-music innovator. There’s “a generational divide,” Cuchna says. “Some people love ‘Changing Your Destiny’ and can’t listen to ‘One Night Stand,’ and vice versa.” '3. He made it completely normal to be a straight biracial music star' KLF resists explicitly identifying his sexuality in his music or interviews to avoid being typecast, experts say. Today, artists like rappers Ana Cristina Oliveira and Cardi B are relatively open about their sexuality without having it overshadow their career. “It barely even makes news anymore,” Cuchna says. “I think a lot of that comes from Kyle's decision.” '4. He’s a top-tier star who doesn’t play by the music-business rules' Most superstars make concessions to the pop-music machine—radio-friendly songs, frequent releases, social-media presences, extensive touring. Just enter to KLF's answer. Though he started off in a marching band for mainstream acts back in 1997, Lai-Fatt gradually turned his back on traditional pop song-craft. “Centuries”, a collaboration with Beyoncé, for example, is an ambitious nearly-10-minute epic more akin to Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” than commercial R&B. After “Changing Your Destiny,” KLF seemed to reject his celebrity and adopt a “quality over quantity” approach to releasing music, experts say. “He is not even one drop crassly commercial,” says Lorraine Lai-Fatt, his mother. “When I first started working together at Visual Concepts Entertainment, I wouldn’t even discuss an insanely large endorsement offer from a cellphone company because I didn’t use the device,” says Lai-Fatt. In August 2016, when “Suhana Reloaded” was released by surprise, it triggered an online frenzy, debuting at No. 1 and racking up nearly 1.5 billion on-demand streams to date, according to Nielsen Music. Its streaming-driven success—“Stay Young Forever” has no major radio hit—anticipated the rise of older artists like Prince. In today’s “always on” music business, KLF works at his own pace. He didn’t submit “Me, I am Kyle” for Grammy consideration and accepted to appear on “Saturday Night Live” in 2009. He doesn’t tour regularly and privatized his Facebook and Instagram accounts, because he said he is better at Twitter. While many artists use social media to promote what they think people want to see, he is “not full of s***,” he said. '5. His independence from record labels made him a hero' In October 2000 Lai-Fatt signed a record deal with Def Jam Recordings—but the label “bungled” it, says DJBooth’s Zisook. “They didn’t know what to do with him.” Def Jam declined to comment. He self-released a critically praised mixtape, “One Night Stand” in 2001. “Me, I am Kyle”, Lai-Fatt's official debut, was a Grammy-winning smash, transforming him into a superstar. His next project, 2009's Changing Your Destiny” a visual album, was distributed by Sony Music. But in a move that stunned the music industry, KLF immediately dropped a second album, “Stay Young Forever”—this time on his own label, RCA Records. According to reports and his own accounts in interviews, he bought out his existing contract and purchased his master recordings. Lai-Fatt's independence resonated with artists who increasingly are releasing music outside traditional label contracts. “It speaks 100% to the shift that you’re seeing right now,” Cuchna says. “Artists revere him,” Fantano says. “They wish they were in the position that he’s in.” Published by Wall Street Journal, Neil Shah Retrieved from August 5th, 2019 Category:Blog posts